Did 80,000 People Really Die from the Flu Last Year? Inflating Flu Death Estimates to Sell Flu Shots

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that the 2017-2018 flu season killed 80,000 and hospitalized 900,000 Americans. Of course, the mainstream media reported this as fact as shown in this September 27, 2018 article in the Washington Post:

The Powers-That-Be, including the CDC and the mainstream media, are using these estimates to promote the flu shot for the upcoming flu season.

Keep in mind, the 80,000 deaths and 900,000 hospitalizations are ESTIMATES. And, I can state, with authority, that they are very poor estimates.

You see, deaths from flu are always estimates because if the Powers-That-Be reported the true numbers of deaths from actual influenza infections, the numbers would be much lower and people would not be so inclined to receive a flu shot.

How does the CDC overestimate the number of flu deaths? The CDC accomplishes this by reporting a combined pneumonia and influenza death rate. Every time I try to analyze this data, I know I will have to spend at least an hour searching for the true number who died from influenza because the CDC tries to hide that data.

Why does the CDC do this? The answer is easy: The more people that receive the flu vaccine, the more money the CDC makes. You see, the CDC holds patents on many vaccines including the flu vaccine. (1)

Perhaps I could tolerate the CDC combining pneumonia with flu deaths IF the flu vaccine prevented both. However, the flu vaccine has never been shown to have any impact on the number of deaths from pneumonia.

In fact, for the vast majority who receive it, the flu vaccine has little impact on preventing the flu, but I digress.

In 2001 the CDC reported that 62,034 died from influenza and pneumonia. That year, I would bet that CDC proclaimed that flu killed over 50,000 Americans. After a painful hour of searching the CDCs database, I found the true 2001 numbers: 257 died from influenza and 61,777 died from pneumonia. Keep in mind, any death from the flu is tragic, but those numbers are out of a population of over 300 million. In 2010 (the latest year data are available) there were 55,227 deaths due to pneumonia and flu. Flu killed 4,605 while pneumonia killed the rest. (2)

So, let’s go back to last year’s flu season. The flu season lasts about six months. 80,000 deaths would lead one to conclude that 13,333 died per month (80,000/6 months) from the flu. If we further divide that number by 50 (the number of states), we can conclude that there were 267 people dying each month in every state from the flu. Since the internet provides 24-hour news cycles, I think we all would have heard that about 9 people (267/30 days per month) in every state dying daily from the flu. (3)

I have five practitioners in my office. We have over 100 years of experience in treating patients. None of us has can recall a single patient dying from the flu.

In fact, I can guarantee you that if 9 people were dying in my state daily from the flu, my partners and I would hear about it. In fact, there are always headlines on the internet when one person dies from the flu.

Studying the past CDC data shows that each year a few hundred to a few thousand die from the flu.